Each year since its founding in 2006, PDHRP has received a growing number of calls and emails from deportees and their family members. Still, we are only able to provide information to a tiny fraction of the more than 400,000 people who are deported each year. Deported individuals face numerous and steep hurdles in obtaining information about the consequences of their deportations and about any possible lawful avenues of return to the United States. Of those deportees who contacted us this past year – more than 200 people from over 50 countries – the vast majority had been deported many months, and usually years, before finding our project. Until finding us, most individuals who contacted us had not been able to locate legal resources or assistance regarding options for post-deportation relief.

Draft Declaration on the Rights of Expelled and Deported Persons

Following the May 2014 conference, we made further revisions and additions to the draft document, including a change in the name. The Declaration on the Rights of Expelled and Deported Persons is now available, in its draft form, here. We will continue reviewing commentary and suggestions and revising the text.

Conference on Draft Convention on Rights of Forcibly Expelled Persons

On May 1-3, 2014, the Post-Deportation Human Rights Project hosted a major conference on a Draft Convention on the Rights of Forcibly Expelled Persons with leading scholars from around the world as well as people who work with the deported. Read more about it here and see some more pictures here.

About PDHRP

Over the past decade, immigrant communities in the U.S. have been subjected to an increasing range of systematic human rights violations, including arrest without warrants, incarceration without bail, and deportation without regard to family ties, length of residence in the U.S., or other humanitarian factors.

The Post-Deportation Human Rights Project, based at the Center for Human Rights and International Justice at Boston College, is designed to address the harsh effects of current U.S. deportation policies. The Project aims to conceptualize an entirely new area of law, providing direct representation to individuals who have been deported and promoting the rights of deportees and their family members through research, policy analysis, human rights advocacy, and training programs. The ultimate aim of the Project is to advocate, in collaboration with affected families and communities, for fundamental changes that will introduce proportionality, compassion, and respect for family unity into U.S. immigration laws and bring these laws into compliance with international human rights standards.

PDHRP files an amicus brief in the First Circuit with the American Immigration Council arguing for proportionality in all deportation decisions. Read more on AIC's blog: The Punishment Should Fit the Crime.

PDHRP Victory: Lawful Permanent Resident Returned to US After Wrongful Deportation! Read the full press release here. (Oct. 7, 2013)

PDHRP submitted a brief in support of a thematic hearing on mandatory deportation and the effects on family unity before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. See our brief here. Affiliated Faculty Prof. Kalina Brabeck, co-director of the project Prof. M. Brinton Lykes, and Dr. Stuart Lustig, also submitted a report on the psychosocial impact of detention and deportation. You can read it here. The Commission has granted the request, and a hearing is scheduled for October 28. Check back soon for more on this!